Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (The Criterion Collection)
by Paul Schrader
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DVD details
Actor: Ken OgataDirector: Paul Schrader
Brand: Image Entertainment
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Japanese (Original Language); English (Original Language)
Format: Color, Dolby, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 120 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-07-01
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Criterion Collection
DVD Reviews of Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (The Criterion Collection)
DVD Review: Uses Mishima's novels to support its argument, but misses their nuances.
Summary: 3 Stars
Paul Schrader explains Yukio Mishima's bizarre death as sort of an attempt to create the ultimate performance art, merging the "beauty" of art and action. Mishima also eroticized death, which led him to the view that death would be the ultimate method of aesthetic expression. Schrader amasses numerous arguments in favour of this view, quotes from Mishima juxtaposed with re-enacted scenes from three Mishima novels. Often, something Mishima said at one point is reiterated in the literary scenes. Then, Mishima's suicide is shown together with a montage showing the deaths of his novels' protagonists. Diagnosis: the books were "rehearsals" (this word is frequently repeated in the film) for the suicide.
The only problem is that Mishima said lots of different things. He was adept at manipulating audiences, which is even conveyed in this film by Ken Ogata's charming grin. And if you actually start reading his novels, they take you in very peculiar, unexpected directions.
One of the novels chosen by Schrader is, of course, Runaway Horses. No surprise there: it's a story about a fanatical Japanese nationalist who commits suicide. The connection should be obvious...but it's not. For one thing, the film doesn't mention that the young fanatic Isao is actually not the main character of Runaway Horses. He's almost a supporting actor in his own story. The main character, a middle-aged lawyer named Honda, is a very different person, not given to insane death wishes. For him, the drama unfolding around Isao is a sort of religious conundrum, for reasons that you'd have to read the book to understand.
The film also doesn't mention that Runaway Horses is merely the second part in a tetralogy of novels. The tetralogy shows three young people coming to bad ends, but Isao is the only one with a death-drive. Kiyoaki, the protagonist of the first (and best) book Spring Snow, doesn't want to die, he's just helpless against his own uncontrollable passions. Ying Chan, the third protagonist, is completely carefree and enjoys her life, and does nothing whatsoever that might invite death. And once you get to the fourth book, all the explanations really go out the window, because that's where Mishima writes a shocking finale that subtly questions whether Isao's suicide had any meaning or value. The real kicker is that the fourth book was completed by Mishima the morning of the day he died, so it was one of the last things he thought about...whatever that might mean.
Schrader also adapts some excerpts from The Temple Of The Golden Pavilion. What the film doesn't show is that, although Mizoguchi does originally plan to die inside the burning building, he has a change of heart after the dastardly deed. The last line of the book is, "I wanted to live." Not only that, but this whole novel is very different in tone from Mishima's later work. In fact, compared to the sensual grace of Spring Snow, The Temple Of The Golden Pavilion reads a bit like a reverent Dostoevsky imitation.
And what about Mishima's other novels? What about The Sound Of Waves, a charming love story with no death-wish whatsoever? Sure, it was written early in Mishima's career, but so was Confessions Of A Mask, which is heavily quoted here. What about After The Banquet, where the protagonist is a tenacious, materialistic old lady with a refreshing zest for life? What about The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea, which does have a gloomy, death-obsessed youth, but subtly makes him look silly?
Alas, the novels are simplified on purpose. The scenes from the books are deliberately shown in a hyper-stylized, unrealistic manner. The sets are obviously fake, like stage decorations painted in a primitivist art style. After the assassination at the end of Runaway Horses, the trees suddenly turn a lurid, blood-red colour. The rooms in the scenes from Kyoko's House are painted in garish purple and pink, and people wear grotesquely gaudy clothes in clashing colours. The worst fate falls to the poor Golden Pavilion. The set is a room with blocky trees painted on the walls. The temple itself is a small model, looking barely taller than a person. It is surrounded by gaudy yellow walkways and green blobs on the floor that symbolize water.
Admittedly, the novel itself is somewhat unrealistic (many verbose monologues that sound nothing like actual conversation), so it is possible to interpret the book in this sort of Grand Guignol style. But, although it's possible, it has the side effect of destroying all the delicate, unsettlingly sensual images, such as the farewell scene between the woman and the soldier during the war. That scene is only understandable and real on the real-life grounds of Kinkakuji, where the full-size temple sits pretty among soft, quiet ponds. If the Golden Pavilion looks as obviously fake as on this ghastly set, there's just no way to believe in Mizoguchi's obsession. Even if it's not always believable in the book, at least Mishima wanted readers to believe it, so a film adaptation should try to make viewers temporarily suspend disbelief -- that is, if the goal is to understand Mishima's thinking.
Schrader strives for realism when he shows scenes from Mishima's life. When Mishima gets his picture taken with his disciples, Ogata and the other actors take care to sit in exactly the same poses as in the real-life photograph. But when it comes to the books, Schrader does the opposite. Maybe he really thinks that the books were mere "rehearsals," imperfect due to their reliance on "words." But that seems like an awfully glib way to write off the work of a man who, after all, was primarily a writer, and a very skilled and purposeful one. Especially when his books are much more ambiguous and interesting than shown in this film.
Description of Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (The Criterion Collection)
MISHIMA:LIFE IN FOUR CHAPTERS - DVD MovieWith Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, Paul Schrader constructs a puzzle-box portrait of the controversial author (1925-1970) who turned his life into a work of art. Presented by Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas, Schrader outdoes his benefactors in sheer audacity alone. In the opening sequence, which weaves throughout the film, Yukio Mishima (riveting Shohei Imamura regular Ken Ogata) prepares for death as the director cuts to pivotal moments from his past. Shot by American Gigolo's John Bailey and designed by The Cell's Eiko Ishioka, stately black and white footage alternates with eye-popping color sequences. With an assist from Leonard and Chieko Schrader, his brother and sister-in-law, the filmmaker blends Mishima's fiction into his biography, and splits the whole four ways: beauty, art, action, and harmony of pen and sword (the brothers also wrote Sydney Pollack's Japanese thriller The Yakuza). Encouraged by his controlling grandmother, Mishima becomes a conflicted figure, torn between mind and body, pain and pleasure--men and women. As he states, "All my life I have been acutely aware of a contradiction in the very nature of my existence." (This collector's edition includes separate voice-over tracks by Ogata and Roy Scheider.)
The first disc houses a gorgeous transfer of the film, the theatrical trailer, and comprehensive commentary from Schrader and producer Alan Poul; the second offers a making-of featurette (with Bailey, Ishioka, and composer Philip Glass), audio and video interviews (including translator and biographer John Nathan), a 1966 chat with Mishima for French TV, and a 1985 John Hurt-narrated documentary for the BBC. Unlike Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima, which found favor in the East, Paul Schrader's risk-filled endeavor resulted in a ban in his subject?s home country--and the director's crowning achievement. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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